And the season comes to a close...

The league played its last game of the season last weekend, The Cannon Brawlers narrowly beating the Newcastle Roller Derby League's Dockyard Dames. It was the game I'd been looking forward to and training towards since February, the taste of international glory I couldn't wait for...

...and I watched it from the sidelines, writing the twitterfeed.

Don't get me wrong, tweeting the game was fun and let me watch the game from a pretty great angle (and apparently I did quite a good job of it too!) but I won't deny it was hard. My ankle appears to be healing on a "two steps forward, one back" model. this week I've been very stressed with work and some other things and it seems to respond. I'm not in pain all the time, just a lot of the time, and that's no fun at all. I tried skating on Monday at an endurance practice and lasted less than half an hour before the pain got too much. I tried to be brave about it but it was a blow to my confidence. My exercise regime at the moment could best be described as sporadic, and I know it's affecting my recovery and my mood too. Tomorrow is a Monday and a fresh start I suppose, just need to grit teeth and see a minor setback as exactly that.

So yes, the recovery is going slowly but it is going. Trainings are nearly over for the year (with advanced fresh meat ending soon after that), the Christmas party in a month's time. It's a time for reflection, given the point of this blog.

I think I've learned more about myself this year than I have in a long time. It's interesting that I've been documenting it as it's happened, it'll be interesting to read back through this blog in the future and reflect.

I started January in a heterosexual, monogamous relationship that wasn't working despite the best efforts of both of us. I was training hard for my skills test, wondering if I'd get into a team this year, and focusing on losing some weight and getting a bit fitter.

January 2011.

By February I was single, horribly confused and fragile, and living in a converted garage. I passed skills, and derby became a valuable (vital?) part of my life. A constant. A way to improve something of myself when all around me things seemed to be going wrong, weird, or just plain confusing. I knew where I was with derby.

It was about this time when my previous faith in my body to constantly improve starting to be questioned. "Breaking" my scaphoid due to sheer bad luck the week before my first bout, groin strains, shoulder problems that just wouldn't go away... it seemed like I was constantly being stress-tested. Still I got to play for Mascara Massacre (brilliant), develop as a skater (great) and cement some close friendships (can't argue on goodness of this one). It felt like the physical knocks outweighed the mental benefits.

I think the weekend I got concussed and had my car smashed up marked a turning point. I had been feeling pressured, tired, weighed down by the delayed effects of the decisions I'd made earlier in the year. Having some dude u-turn into my car as I drove some friends to a party (people who trusted me to get them there safely!), and then slamming the back of my head onto the track two days later felt like a monumental cosmic slap in the face. I got together with someone at this point, but ended it soon after. Lots of reasons, but one was that I realised I was in no fit state to be in a relationship with anyone (if you happen to read this, I'm sorry) and ended it before I became the kind of high-maintenance, batshit girlfriend I despise in others.

Three weeks of enforced standown for concussion and I had to evaluate how I felt about the sport that earlier in the year had saved me. Was it still what I needed? Or was I using it as an excuse to not focus on other things? With the home season at a close, and travel team pressure on, I really didn't know how I felt any more. I stopped sleeping properly, became a bit directionless, I guess if I didn't know what the real thing felt like I'd say I became depressed (now there is a diagnosis I use VERY carefully).

Happily, I smashed my ankle and sorted all that out.

Or not.

I've blogged about this in enough detail that even I'm getting sick of typing it, let alone reading about it. Mentally though, it left me in a better position afterwards than I would have imagined.

November 2011. Spot the difference.

Partly that has to do with my parents being over, and having three weeks away from Auckland whilst being looked after (and I think I've mentioned the weirdness of transitioning from being an adult into someone's child) but partly it was having derby forcibly taken away from me. The crutch being taken off me. It hurt. To see what was needing fixed, what I'd been neglecting, what I wanted that didn't involve eight wheels and a helmet pantie. I came back to Auckland, got the cast off, cracked my knuckles and set out to fix what needed doing. I moved out of the garage and into an airy little flat in town, living on my own for the first time. I sold my motorcycle, swapped my beat-up Clio for a new(ish) Toyota and a large loan, and got back in the wetsuit and rediscovered scuba diving after years away. It's a sport that's technical, requires a certain level of fitness, isn't competitive and seems...simpler.

It's not been an easy month or so (physically or mentally) and I think I need to see how the dust settles this summer before I work out what comes next. I still want derby in my life, and I think coaching and my home team will be my 2012 season. It was hard watching my friends and fellow Feb 2011 graduates skate out in the PCR travel team jersey, something I'd been working so hard to earn, but you know what? It's just a jersey.

I'm ending the PCR 2011 season fatter, less fit and less skilled than when I started. This hasn't been the outcome I may have hoped for, but things could have been a lot worse.